


This Night Just Can't End

by Awesome_Sauce432



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Convenient Magical Snowstorm, Delirious Arguing Over Who Gets Blankets, F/F, The Answer Is They SHARE The Blankets, huddling together for warmth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 22:29:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20053567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Awesome_Sauce432/pseuds/Awesome_Sauce432
Summary: An encounter with a magical snowstorm leaves Beau and Jester separated from the rest of the Nein, and they end up huddled in a cave ridiculously cold, slightly delirious and with only a limited supply of things to warm themselves up with.





	This Night Just Can't End

**Author's Note:**

> it's not plagiarism if i'm plagiarising myself >:)   
aka: this basically had a similar premise to like 3 of my other fics but i don't care they're adorable and i love this scenario so much

Their first few days on the road after leaving the town were remarkably calm, and that probably should have been their first warning. Still in the thick of Xhorhas, a quiet day was a rarity. Three in a row was a concern. But with nothing on the horizon but distant mountains and swampy marshes, there was nothing for them to do but press forward, a little wary but mostly enjoying the peace, travelling alongside a cliff face that ran parallel to the path they were on.

Which made the swiftly forming clouds a bit more of a surprise. In the minutes it took to realise it wasn’t a naturally occurring storm, thick and heavy snowflakes began to fall. In the seconds it took between that realisation and the one that it was probably a good idea to _stick together_, they had gone from a light sprinkle to a full-on blizzard, so thick they could barely see past their own hands, and suddenly it was as if the others weren’t there at all.

Beau could hear the others shouting, their voices muffled and distorted by the roaring of wind and snow around her, already soaking her down the bone. She called out, pulling down her night vision goggles just to stop from being blinded, but that just made what little visibility she did have even worse so fuck it, she pulled them back up, settling for holding one hand above her eyes and squinting as narrowly as possible.

She saw flashes of orange somewhere in the distance, impossible to tell how far or how close. Stupid magical snowstorms. But orange meant fire and fire meant warmth, and more importantly, Caleb.

Her legs felt like lead, already numb as if she’d been wading through the snow for hours. The wind buffeted her from a million directions at once, each foot of ground gained feeling like she’d walked a mile.

Caleb’s fire — or at least what she _hoped _was Caleb’s fire, didn’t stay still. Some moments it was bright like a beacon against the white, other times it wasn’t visible at all, and when it appeared again it had shifted far too far to the left or right to make sense. She never seemed to get any closer, never saw even a glimpse of one of the others.

Fuck. Shit, this was bad. She tried calling out again for the others, her voice lost in the wind, her throat immediately dried out from the gales that surrounded her. She was already shaking from the cold, goosebumps running along her arms.

But this time another voice caught her ear, nearly inaudible but just sharp enough to cut through the thundering. Beau’s head snapped in the direction of the sound, immediately changing course. If it was one of her friends, then great. If it was an enemy, then maybe she could punch them to death and end whatever was happening.

As she raced in what she prayed was the right direction, she felt her footsteps becoming easier to take, the resistance lessening as she ran towards the eye of the storm, which only further emboldened her.

She broke out of the blizzard into a patch of clean air just long enough to take a breath before she saw Jester (half white from snow but hardly looking bothered) get struck by a sickly green looking ball of light square in the chest, sending her staggering backwards almost back into the wall of snow behind her.

Already the winds were shifting, that tiny peaceful space Beau had burst into disappearing, their foe retreating to cause more chaos elsewhere. Beau’s eyes were staring straight at Jester, her blue skin and bright pink haversack a neon beacon in the expanse of white. Her figure shook for a few moments before stumbling to her knees, and Beau was sprinting, her heart racing.

“Jes!” She called out as she got to her friend, one hand gripping her shoulder to steady her as Jester’s head rolled forward.

Beau saw Jester’s mouth move, but if she said anything, it was lost to the wind, and she slumped toward Beau, her hands rising up as if to cast a spell, head resting on Beau’s shoulder. She was shivering. Jester didn’t shiver.

Shit. Beau’s stomach twisted in knots, wrapping her arms around Jester as if she would be able to offer any protection from the blizzard. They had to get out of here, but the others were still nowhere to be found. And what if their enemy came back?

She felt Jester shiver again in her arms and made her decision. She didn’t know where any of the others were, and she couldn’t leave Jester here to go find them. Grinding her teeth together, she got to her feet, supporting Jester and holding her close. The tiefling was able to stand and walk, but her hands gripped onto Beau’s robes, her face buried against her shoulder.

“Don’t worry Jes, I gotcha.” Beau held on tight, picking a direction and going for it.

It was slow going with Jester hanging onto her, but they kept going, Beau trying to keep an eye out for the others but seeing none of them. It tore at her heart not knowing what was happening, if they were okay, but there was nothing she could do.

They didn’t find the cliff face so much as nearly run into it, the jagged rocks suddenly looming above them as if they’d been teleported right in front of it. But walking alongside it for a minute or so revealed a small alcove. It was cramped, but it would do.

Jester whimpered as Beau tried to manoeuvre both of them inside, keeping her own back to the entrance, making sure Jester was blocked from the blizzard as much as possible. Her fingers were numb from the cold but she didn’t even care. Jester was pale and still shivering, curling up on the ground.

“Jes-Jes, are you okay?” The sides of the little cave were rough but she hardly felt it, shuffling closer to Jester and brushing the hair from her face, trying to keep her own shivering under control.

“Beau?” Jester’s voice was shaky and stuttering, her eyebrows knitted together. “I-I feel dizzy. And… cold…”

“You look cold.” Beau didn’t mention how Jester _never _got cold. She could happily skip through town in the dead of night in the middle of winter with barely a sniffle. The corner of Jester’s mouth quirked up for a moment before she started shivering horribly again, the tiny smile immediately smothered by a wince.

Her face falling, Beau grabbed for Jester’s haversack, opening it up and pulling out their rod of warming, making sure it was properly activated before slipping it into Jester’s hands, making sure it was tucked as close to her as possible.

“That’s nice.” Jester murmured, hugging the rod to her chest. Beau shuffled a little closer, resting her hands on the end of the rod, sliding down to lie next too Jester. She was still shivering herself, glancing outside to see the blizzard still raging, sending blasts of cold air inside their hiding place every few seconds.

The warming rod made it a little better, but just to be sure, Beau dug around in the haversack again, pulling out a bedroll (Beau’s having been stored in Fjord’s bag of holding) and any blankets she could find. It took some awkward manoeuvring and shuffling around, but she was able to get Jester bundled up so well only her face was visible, cheeks and nose flushed and eyes half-lidded.

Throughout the whole escapade Jester had been quiet, which was less concerning than her shivering but still strange. Beau could feel her eyes on her, but when she looked she found them unfocused, easily slipping from one thing to the next, blinking slowly.

“Do you feel warmer now?” Beau asked, hugging the one blanket she’d allowed herself.

“Lil’ bit.” Jester was lying on her back with her head tilted towards Beau, cheeks smooshed against the blankets and cloaks that Beau had bundled around her head, which only made her look absolutely adorable. “I’m tired…”

She shivered again, her entire cocoon vibrating, eyes squeezing shut as her face contorted in a thinly veiled grimace. Beau’s heart clenched, shuffling closer to Jester, pulling the top half of her body into her lap, leaning over her to shield her from the cold wind even more.

“Hey, hey, are you alright?” She didn’t know what to do, she’d never had to deal with anything like this before. “Can you heal it or something?”

Jester shuffled around a little in her cocoon for a moment, but there was no soft magical light, not even a spark. After a few moments, she exhaled deeply, as if even that had expended a great deal of effort. “Not working.” The pout she makes along with that statement is so childishly cute that Beau has to stifle a laugh, the seriousness of the situation momentarily ignored. 

Then the moment passes and they’re still stuck in a tiny hole in the side of a cliff and Jester is shivering (she’s resistant to cold she _never _shivers) and can’t do magic and Beau is pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to feel it if she got punched in the stomach right then and there. Her hands are shaking involuntarily, a low hum droning in the back of her head.

“Beau—” Jester’s mumbling, her eyes half-lidded, and it takes Beau a moment to respond, the single syllable getting stuck in her brain like it was swimming through molasses before it finally made sense.

“Yeah?” Dimly, she realised some of her hair had fallen in front of her face, swaying loosely.

“You’re snowy.”

Beau blinked, glancing around to see her shoulders were dusted with snowflakes. If she were able to twist her head any further, her back probably was too. “Huh. Cool.”

“You’re cold.”

“Nah, I’m fine.”

Jester seemed displeased with that statement, frowning and continuing to talk, her sentences a little slurred. “Nooo, I’m cold and when I’m cold that means everyone’s cold so you’re cold.”

“Naaaaaah-”

“Yeeeeeeeeah-”

Jester shuddered again, and just seeing it sent a shiver down Beau’s spine as well, hugging her blanket tighter around her.

“I don’t want you to be cold.” Jester’s voice was soft but a little clearer than before, looking up at Beau and managing to hold her gaze for a few moments before her head tilted down again, unable to keep up the upward angle for very long. “I don’t like being cold.”

Beau didn’t respond for a while, absentmindedly brushing strands of hair out of Jester’s face, only for them to pop back into place. Slowly, she found herself sliding down onto her side, curling her legs up with Jester resting between them and her head.“I’m okay.”

“No, you’re cold.”

“Okay, _maybe _I’m cold.” Beau huffed. “But I have a blanket.”

“I have a million blankets though. I have all the blankets. That’s too many blankets.”

“Yeah, cause you deserve all the blankets. You deserve everything.” She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to stop her from shivering, distantly feeling Jester shuffle next to her.

There was nothing but the sound of the blizzard raging outside for a while until Beau felt a warmth poking at her chest. Just that tiny amount of content sent a wave of relief through her cold-wracked-probably-halfway-to-hypothermic body, and Jester continued to poke it at her until Beau finally took the warming rod, managing to loosely hold onto one end while the other was still tucked into Jester’s bedroll.

She heard Jester mumble something, forced her eyelids to crack open to see her looking up at Beau again, one arm pulled out from the safe bedroll and blanket cocoon and pawing at her shoulder, trying to get her to come closer.

“Cm’ere…” Jester tugged weakly at the edges of her cloak, shrugging away some of the blankets and pulling herself slightly out of the bedroll. “Cmon.”

Beau didn’t have it in her to resist, her mind foggy from cold and exhaustion. It took a solid few minutes, but eventually, she managed to pull herself into the bedroll as well, both of them clumsily rearranging the blankets around them to cover as much skin as possible and the warming rod in between them.

It took a while for Beau to settle down, the sudden contrast from blistering cold to the warmth inside the cocoon and the rod so sharp it sent another wave of shudders through her, but Jester hugged her tight, arms wrapped around both for necessity due to lack of space, and maybe just because she wanted to. Beau hoped it was just because she wanted to. When Beau hugged back, it was definitely because she wanted to.

They laid entwined in silence for a while, feeling each others breath on their skin, their shivers slowly growing quieter and quieter. Beau could feel herself begin to sink into sleep, aware enough to distantly ponder whether sleep was a good idea or not but not quite aware enough to stop herself. At least until Jester began to talk again.

“I’ve never been that cold before.”

“Magic’s a bitch.” Beau’s eyes were closed, resting her head in the crook of Jester’s neck, her words coming out almost muffled and distorted, but she was pretty sure Jester got the message.

“I don’t like it.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

They lapsed into silence again, as Jester seemed to be thinking over her next words, but her current processing speed was possibly slower than Beau’s.

“You gave me all the blankets.” She finally said.

“Mmhmm.”

“But you only had one. That’s not fair.”

“No, you get all the blankets, that’s fair.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yea it is.”

“How come?”

“Cause you’re the best and I love you. I deal with cold all the time, I’m okay.” With all the self-awareness of herself after a few drinks, Beau tilted her head down to peck a quick kiss to Jester’s shoulder. “Sides, I’m warm now. You’re really soft.”

Jester fell quiet for another moment or two, and Beau snuggled in a little closer, feeling Jester’s heartbeat beneath her skin. She was fading fast, she could tell, and it took all of her remaining energy just to try and focus on what Jester is saying, not that she was doing any better in terms of staying away.

“I don’t want to get all the blankets if… it means you have to deal with the cold. I love you too.” Her voice was soft and getting softer, and Beau felt Jester’s cheek press against the top of her head, hug squeezing a little tighter before quickly relaxing.

“Sorry.” Beau mumbled, though it probably came out more like a ’sr’ sound than anything else.

“You deserve everything too, you know?” Was the last, gentle line she heard before she finally slipped into an exhausted sleep, Jester following soon after, the both of them holding each other tight, safe and secure in each other's arms. 

**Author's Note:**

> oh you thought i was finished???? you thought beaujester week was the end??? you fool you imbecile i will never die i have a long list of beaujester AU ideas and i will complete that list if it kills me 
> 
> anyway its like 10:30pm so i myself am feeling slightly delirious and i require the sleep but i wrote this instead 
> 
> also i couldn't think of a title so i used another dodie lyric HA take that homophobia get punked


End file.
